Jeff Emanuel Online

Nancy Pelosi is the leader of the Democratic Party

A sobering point indeed:

It is hard to fathom Stafford will receive more guaranteed money than anyone who has ever played. Think about that. A 21-year-old man who had three stellar, yet not overwhelming years playing college football, is at the top of the totem poll on the NFL pay scale. It is a good thing the NFL’s popularity is at an all-time high because this would be an absolutely unsustainable business model in any other industry.

In his three years of college, he displayed off-the-charts arm strength, a tendency to make very bad decisions (especially under pressure), and a total inability to put touch on the ball — his screen passes smacked Knowshon Moreno in the facemask at the same velocity his 70-yard fly patterns were launched. The two NFL guys I would most compare Stafford to are Jeff George and JaMarcus Russell — and I’d go so far as to say Stafford is the poor man’s version of the former (not exactly a complimentary fact).

The Lions are the Lions are the Lions. Always have been, always will be. When one of the three or four greatest backs every to put on the spikes retires in the prime of his career just to get away from your franchise, you might as well go ahead and admit you’re cursed for good, I suppose.

From the department of pathetic ignorance or willfully not getting it (not sure which to file this one in yet) comes this clip of a CNN reporter shouting down a Chicago Tea Party attendee for not displaying the appropriate appreciation and gratitude to President Obama for his gift to the state of Illinois of billions in borrowed money and trillions in new debt.

These people simply don’t get the fact that these modern-day tea parties aren’t simply about taxes.

They’re about increased taxes and even more greatly increased debt, yes. But they’re also about the punishment of hard work and success through confiscatory government policy; about the replacement of age-old American equality of opportunity by government-mandated equality of outcome, and — perhaps most importantly — they are about current attempts by liberal politicians to interject government into the daily life decisions of ordinary American citizens.

CNN reporter Susan Roesgen can try to control the focus of these tea parties all she wants by shouting at participants to talk only about taxes, but that just shows she’s missing the boat as badly as folks like Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (Democrat), who posted to Twitter this afternoon that she was “confused” why people were fed up with trillions in government waste.

It’s okay; these people can not get it all they want. Those who participated (and are participating in) any of the thousand modern-day tea parties being held around the country today get it — and when this movement grows through 2009 and into 2010, and when its momentum is felt at the polls next year, they’ll start to get a clue just what magnitude a sleeping dragon they awoke with their profligate spending, their spreading of the wealth, and their encroachment into people’s personal lives and decisions.

While I generally adhere to a policy of ignoring idiot college kids (and their close evolutionary relatives, post-graduate young pseudo-intellectuals with Obama-esque delusions of self-importance), this post caught my eye. Yesterday a child named Ezra Klein, who apparently writes for an online magazine called the American Prospect, had this to say about the U.S. Navy’s rescue of Maersk-Alabama captain Richard Philips from the Somali pirates who had held him hostage since the middle of last week:

DEEP HISTORICAL THOUGHT.

Over the weekend, Navy Seals equipped with high-powered sniper rifles and night-vision scopes shot three pirates dead and rescued an American hostage. After dark. Using only three bullets. From 100 feet away. On a boat. Which raises the obvious question: Can we finally agree that whatever Barack Obama is, he’s not Jimmy Carter?

Here’s a story you might be interested in. Over the weekend, I ordered a pizza from my personal favorite place — Johnny’s NY Style Pizza and Subs — with half pepperoni and half cheese. The driver showed up on time with a piping hot pie, despite tornadoes and driving rain in the area, and the delicious New York-style dinner I consumed as a result, along with a glass of Blanton’s bourbon whiskey, was one of the best I’ve had in some time. Which raises the obvious question: Can we finally agree that, whatever their middle relievers may have done against the Phillies in last Wednesday’s meltdown, the Atlanta Braves are a heckuvalot better baseball team than they were last year?

From the Book of Obama, Chapter and Verse 1:

In thebeginning was Obama, Worker of light and the Hope of People unhappy with that which had made their Country great.

And Obama saw that the world was without Internet, and He knew such a world to be void and formless

So he decided to bestow upon the World the gift of Internet

And some said to Obama, “But Obama! the World already has Internet, as was bestowed upon us by the Gore, Great in his girth and his gift of hyperbole!”

But Obama heard them not; for He knew the world began with His ascension to the Promised Land of the office which He currently Holds

And so He bestowed upon them an Internet, giving it, through His power, for the first time to the People, though some still cried out that this gift was false…

There’s always been a creepy sense of vanguard-esque self-importance among the members of the Obama White House staff. Yesterday, we got more evidence of that, as the White House put out a press release declaring that this first year of Obama marks “the first time the activities at the White House Easter Egg Roll have been broadcast online” (screencap here in case of memoryholing).

The problem? George W. Bush’s White House started offering a live webcast of the Easter Egg Roll in 2002.

Read the rest of this entry »